Ok, it's time to conclude

Guess what, I'm still working at Al Areen site. I just hate this project, met too much donkeys, monkeys, gorillas, morons in this stupid piece of land.

Again, I'm alone. I think since 1996 I always alone in the office writing about my new year eve, just hope I can break the curse next year. So, to my lovely wife, now I book 2011 new year eve to celebrate with you together, how about Tokyo? Wish to bring you there.

Ok, some flash back about 2010.

January, I'm busying preparing my wedding dinner. Busy, busy and busy that time.

February is my big day. I finally bring back my lovely wife to my home after so many years that the house waiting for the lady to come to stay in it.

March is simple, just busying with the stupid project.Oh ya, I forgot that I managed to finish my very first 1/2 marathon within the time limit, although it is very close to end of it, proven I'm quite normal.

April is my honeymoon month, finally after so many years I went to Paris and London with my lovely lady. Strongly recommend Paris for those couples that want some exciting and wonderful memories.

After April is a nightmare for me, I have been travelled very frequent to the desert. I wish I could have more time for my family. Just want to take this chance to apology to my wife that I'm not a good husband, lot of mistakes that I'd made this year, I understand time never go back and I hope you forgive me for those stupid mistakes that I had made and let you down. I promise myself to be a better husband and will never let you disappoint again.

August is another memorable month, I finally conquer another fears of mine, water. You can't imaging how difficult for someone that hydrophobia to jump into deep sea with all those heavy equipments. I'm still afraid of water but I will fully conquer it one day in very near future.

Ok, that's all for the new year eve.

Happy new year to you all, wish the coming year, a better year.

Life never being easy, neither I being weaker. Only loser will surrender, definitely not the one who writing this blog.

Taken by Sam

Freezing

I'm back to desert again and the weather make me want to go home T.T
I wish I got a heater with me now.

Maxis, Symbian and MMS

Just in case you are trying to sent MMS through your phone and it failed, and just in case you are using Maxis and the phone is Symbian powered *I'm not sure about other operator and OS, you can try the following steps see it can solve your problem or not.

1. Get the setting from Maxis. Just go to and click on the "Get Phone Settings" and key in your phone number to receive the MMS setting through SMS. Accept the setting.
2. Go to your phone, press Menu key and select Settings -> Connectivity -> Admin Settings -> APN Control. If the Connection Restrictions are active, most likely, then you need to deactivate it.
3. Selection Option -> Deactivate restrictions. If it ask for pin, then key in "1234".
4. Restart your phone and try to send the MMS to your friend.

Dream

Recently I found that I start to dream. Ya, I seldom dream for the past few years until last few months and it started. Some odd dreams, although dream has never been normal, I believe. I think it is more or less due to my current project. I'm going there soon, to end it, I hope I can stop travelling there for a while after this trip.

Ok, today is Christmas eve. I'm not Christian, so no special Christmas eve dinner and no special celebration also. But today I a bit excited after receiving a call from my friend; his sister just get a Christmas eve baby, congratulation.

I love this Christmas song very much, hope you all will like it also.

Thats all for today, Merry Christmas.

Update from the Bolehland

I'm in Bolehland since last week fly back from the desert. As usual, no other place on earth is better than my own sweet home.

It has been a busy day since I touchdown; went meeting with monkey, prepare drawings for the new projects, playing with my photography, repair car,... time just not enough here.

Most of the soldiers have back to Bolehland.

My wild horse will manage a new project. I hope he can show us a correct and successful way to handle a project. It's a tight budget project but I believe a surviver can live under nothing.

My super planner is a bit miserable nowadays. Now he doesn't know what is his stand in this company cause he still didn't get any appointment letter from this big company. Hope this wouldn't be too long.

Fanshue said he don't want to go back to desert again. I hope he think twice. Live is not easy especially when you need to deal with monkeys.

Chin also a bit miserable. He wish to stay at Bolehland with his three sweet girls, but on the other hand he also hope to earn some pocket money to buy milk powder for his girl. Fish and bear palm, you have to choose one. Hope he can find a balance point.

Desert project has reached a stage that we are able to con the owner to accept the building with all the efforts from our soldier. We have built a air-cond museum for the desert people and they are happy with that museum.

I will back to the desert soon to finish the balance works even though no functional feature needed here. This is the worst project I ever met.

Update final

I see the light, and I hear the sound.

It will never reached this stage without all these engineers.








To be continued...

Update again^2

I thought I'm in the paradise, but I landed on this fucking place.

Update again

There is neither U-turn nor moving forward.

Still slow like not moving T.T

Update

I don't know how high I am, but I just continue to climb up.

Update: Still slow, tell me why it happen? Why?

In the boring Friday evening

Ok, Friday again, holiday for the desert.

So, I talked to my buddy Nic over the msn. That bugger keep on poisoning me to buy camera lens, buy camera accessories T.T. I told him that I got so many loans need to pay, some more need to keep money for future, where got extra money for the luxury hobby. However, at the end I start poisoning him back to get the lens XD. Then the bugger start to tell me need to keep money to buy wife.

Ya, buy wife. Ladies please don't feel offended. No man want to go buy wife if he can get one by themselves, hmmm, I mean most of the man. Suddenly two persons come into my mind, I believe you also know who I referred to. My super planner and my wild horse.

So my curiosity urge me to search the net about buying wife. One of most famous country in Asia that have this kind of "trade" is Vietnam. Vietnam was used to be a very poor country but I believe in another few more years, you wouldn't see these anymore.

I know some of my friends or relative do get a wife from Vietnam. Some just doing well, some got bad ending. It's all depend on luck.

Found this from the Internet

Just in case my reader is interested but don't understand Chinese, so I explain what is in this advertisement.

The main title is Vietnam wife agent.
Guarantee married in 3 months (procedures can be completed in 6 days)
Only need 200k*
The currency is in Taiwan yuan, so it is about RM20k
Four guarantees:
1. guarantee virgin -.-"
2. guarantee married within 3 months
3. no additional cost
4. if bride run away in 1 year, guarantee to replace with a new one

Ok, so RM20k for a wife, cheap or not? Well, I believe it is not expensive. I personally is neutral on this. Although it look cruel and  inhuman right, but if your friends or relative really "purchase" a wife, we just can wish them a happy ending. Love can always be cultured from day to day.

Suddenly a story come out from my mind that I would like to share with you all.

Ok, as we all known desert people can have four wives, which allow by their religion. If the lady is not the wife of the man, the man is illegal to have sex with that lady. So, the story is a about a coward that want to get prostitute but afraid will go to hell at the end of his day. So, he think of a way that can "legally" to have sex with other lady. He asking the prostitute to sign on a "contract" or something similar, so that she is "married" to him for that day, and on the next day, they will devoice. By using this method he is hoping he will go heaven when he dead because in his opinion he did nothing wrong.

Well, wrong mean wrong no matter how you cover it, it is still wrong, but the way of try to covering yourself with these coward ways will just make you a jerk, a useless human that wasting mother earth resources.

Ok, I think I write too much today, under pressure I think, before I sign off, just to share with all the guy readers, so ladies, excuse me ^^

Vietnamese girl - Elly Tran Ha

Tuzki

First step is important, because it determine how high is second step;

and every steps after that are important, it determine how far you have moved.

Sien

Thursday evening, sien. Everyone in this house is a bit abnormal, I start to realise the feeling of staying in the jail.

Deadline is near, work still far to complete. Trying hard to push it, but no material at site. What the fuck I'm doing here. Need to change my strategy. I no fuck care and I'm going to finish it before 9th Dec even working 24 hours. That's my deadline.

Cook guilinggao to kill my time, no take dinner cause not hungry.

When I see the guilinggao, I think of my lovely wife, she just love it.

I was thinking one day maybe I will open a bar or something like a bar or bistro, old man bar. No noise music, I hate those stupid music that make people scream at each other. Simple interior, not too fancy, not too luxury, just simple until you can't notice it. Couple can just come in and sit at one corner to enjoy their meal and whispering at each other with lovely smile; colleagues come in enjoy a cup of beer, teasing each other stupidity and cursing the stupid boss; businessmen come in, try to convince each other that they are the best in town and end up with a cheers; family celebrate their birthday; students celebrate the end of exam. A place that full with joy. Hope my dream can come true someday.

I'm your chef again

Today I want to show you all how to cook a leftover chicken. Ya, leftover chicken. I'm a thrifty person, not stingy, ok?

Let us start with our main ingredient, the left over chick. This is the 1/2 chicken that I can't finished yesterday due to an annoying email. Remember to put the chicken in the fridge if you don't want to go toilet so frequent, but since now is winter; I think it shouldn't be a big problem if you don't do that.

Chop the chicken into small pieces. After that take garlic and cut/grind it into small pieces.

Warm up your pan, pour a little bit an oil on the pan and let it heat up first. Once you can feel the heat from the oil, pour all the garlic piece into the pan and fry it until golden colour.

Put in the chicken piece and fry it for a while. After that, put some sugar and soya sauce to make the chicken taste better. Cook about 10 minutes and the dish is ready.

 The leftover chicken might not taste as good as restaurant, but you can't get the same taste from the restaurant as well.

Holiday eve

Tomorrow is a public holiday for the desert until Thursday, but my project only off for a day, which is tomorrow. I actually don't looking forward to this holiday, if can I would like to go site and try to complete as much job as I can. Anyway, since it is the desert law is forcing everyone to stop work tomorrow, so I have no choice but to stay at home.

Everyone are getting unbalance. All the sub-cond here is like a king, or rather say that we are actually their sub-cond and they are our client. They work depend on their own sweet time, you can't force them to work. No way. All our engineers work like Bangladesh. We have to prepare everything for our so called sub-cond to come to site and make sure they are happy only they will start working. Else, they just don't pick up your calls. They will get all the money and we get all the hard shit.

I wish my boss reading my blog now and I want to tell them please appreciate these workers, you wouldn't be that lucky to get these people to work for you again.

Today received an email from my client and he dig out stone age project and tell us that we are not providing the drawings. After reading the email, I suddenly no more mood to eat. We have been accuse by these monkeys just because they don't know how to read drawings and they forgot what I have given to them on the training session. Sometime I want to scream at those fuckers and ask them to go back to kindergarten to repeat their study. Bunch of morons.

Finally we concluded that all operators are monkey. We have make a hypothesis that operators are monkey and after 10 years we finally concluded that the hypothesis is truth.

Feel tired. Not because of work, I personally is never tired with engineering works, but when all the efforts are treated like shit, that make us tired, even to speak a word to defend.

I think I should start to let go, but I know if I let go I mean I'm quit. My principle is either do it with all the effort or don't do it at all.

Will think about it once I go back to Bolehland, I think maybe I will open a grill fish shop somewhere.

Finally the winter is coming

I can feel the winter is just around the corner. She is quietly come to the desert. Now even at noon time, I wouldn't feel much heat, the weather is cold in the morning, I think it is between 20-25 deg. C. What a nice weather.

When winter come, it means the job is going to end. And, it also means I'm getting busy.

As a control engineer, the most busiest time in a project is when the project is going to end. When all the mechanical works have completed, I need to start to install the instruments and gauges, pulling and terminating the cables, do setting on the instruments and equipments, setup the system, testing and commissioning. Since 5 years ago, ending a project has become a very challenging task for me, cause my project manager never give me sufficient time that he had promised to give since the beginning of the project. When everyone had finished their job and the deadline is near or due, and everyone is looking at you and waiting for the system to be operated, you can imaging how much pressure I need to take, and most of the time, I will only have less than 1 week to bring up my system to live.

But this time it's slightly different, cause since desert people like to build museum, so we have built a luxury machinery museum for them. It means, I will not need to worry about the sequences of the system which is the most time consuming task. But it's doesn't mean it's easy to end this project. In Bolehland, I have a group of skill workers that never fail me, but in the desert, I can only have monkeys and donkeys to do my job because my procurement want cheap labours. But they forgot that I can get "free worker" also if they want. I can just go get some monkeys or donkeys to ask them finish the job. Well, maybe it is not absolutely free, cause I still need to give them peanut. So, this time, the most challenging time is not on the system, but is to teaching these animals to listen to my instructions.


I have been a zookeeper for almost 10 years and this is the first time I felt helpless.


I have less than 1 month to bring up the basic system and I will back to Bolehland before my anniversary. Ya, it's year 13BM or year 2AM. Guess the meaning of that :)

Apart of that, my super planner will go back to Bolehland on this coming Sunday. After 2 years plus staying in the desert, he is finally go back to Bolehland in 1 full piece. Any single and available girl is looking for hansom (hamsap also), humour (kayu also) and rich (kiamsip also) boy friend, you can leave your name and contact here, I will arrange the date XD

Then my wild horse and Chin is going home on the first of December. My wild horse is also looking for soul mate (I believe he means female). So, those single and available girls please leave your name and contact here. This is the year end jump building suicide sales, once missed you will regret for the rest of your life.

I will postpone my flight to a week later with fanshue. Fanshue is single but not sure still available or not. Too many choices make him difficult to make up his mind. So if you are interested on him, don't wait for him to approach you, just ask him to take you, I think it will be more easier.

Ok, that's all for the working Friday and I think I will not have any holidays until I go back to Bolehland.

Jet lag

Ok, this time jet lag liao. Wake up at 2.30am in the morning, force myself go back sleep. And wake up again in 3am, then 4am. Ok, I'm enough liao. Will wait until 7am and go to work.

God please give me strength today, again I need to talk to monkeys, donkeys and morons.

Time is relative

Einstein said time is relative, the feeling of time is different when you sitting side by side with a pretty girl as compare to meeting with a bunch of morons.
I'm flying again to the desert. I wish this is the last time I need to go there, but reality is cruel. This nightmare will end some days but not this time.
What is my feeling about time?
When I was a school boy (about 25 years ago T.T) I have very weird feeling about time. I feel like my time is repeating or you can call it deja vu. The scene that I saw is like repeating everyday. Sometime I thought I'm living in yesterday. Time seem slow for me that time. That is also the main reason that I phobia to factory kind of job. I feel like losing control of my time.
Now, I feel time is not enough. Too much thing I want to do but too less time. For me, time is like a crazy naked man running crazily, and I just shyly look at him pass by me.

Keigo Higashino - Clone

When I was young (sad beginning T.T), I'm science fiction and detective novel fan. I can read 3 Wisely series in a day. I think I have read about 80+ of Wisely series within 1-2 months. I stop after that cause I need to stop wasting too much time reading novel and concentrate back to my study. That's was one of the most craziest hobby I have.

After school day, I still once a while read some detective novel. I love Sherlock Holmes, but what make me really crazy about detective is Japanese novel and comic. Kimdaichi is one of the best detective comic I ever see.

I actually dare not touch too much of these novels nowadays, cause I afraid I will addicted to it. But it's still my hobby reading these novels.

I just finish the Clone authored by Keigo higashino. Maybe you don't know who is he, but I believe you may have watched some movies that based on his fiction. One of my favourite is Galileo - Suspect X.

Ok, back to about to the novel. Very interesting story line and very easy to understand. It maybe not as good as other, but I love the way the author wrote the story, so recommend for those that want to kill their time.

If I found the second me, what I will say to "myself"?

All because of "O"

It explains something.

It's November

Well, it's November now, still left 2 months before a new year is coming.

What am I doing now?

Busying doing the control drawings for the newly awarded project. Must finish by end of this week and next week I will fly to desert again to finish the stupid project. Start to feel the busy day is following me now. The good news is, I'm going back to my uni once I'd completed my desert project. Can't wait to visit the law faculty.

Anything to conclude so far?

No comment so far, maybe I keep my conclusion until end of this year.

Then any plans?

Not sure also. Feel like losing direction nowadays. Must find a day and seriously look at my future.

Still don't want to go back?

Ok, bye bye.

T.T

Today is another sad day for me T.T

The only flower engineer in our office is leaving us, sad die me liao T.T
The working environment will back to those old days, left all the guys. No more motivative already.

I remember when I first met her is about 5 years ago, I was terminating the controller cables, she just follow me walking around the site. I believe that day I terminated extra cables :p. Then she use my PC, lucky she didn't found out my secret folder :p

Time flew and now she is resigned, I definitely going to miss her this time.
:_( need to clean the shit that she left :p

Although I selfishly hope she can continue stay here but I really wish her all the best and wish she can have a brighter future and earn more money so that she can cook abalone maggie mee for us one day :p.

Keep in touch.

Thanks God it's Thursday finally

Ya, it's Thursday finally and I'm sitting in the business lounge, enjoying the fresh orange juice and waiting for my flight to go back to Bolehland.

Time is relatively slow in the desert as compare to Bolehland. When someone told you that give them five minutes, they actually mean few weeks, and if they say today, you don't expect to see anything until next week or even longer. That is desert people. Basically their time move much slower than us. So, for all the project in the desert, delay for 1-2 years is normal.

Ok, back from those morons.

Finally hunter moon is moving into Aries and it's time for me to go back have a nice rest before I come back to this desert for the last war. Everyone is struggling to end this war by end of this year. I believe the chances is low, but impossible is nothing. Just hope the luck is on our side.

If you delay again I make sure you have a free ticket back to Bolehland.

The desert pipe water

Recently I found that the water from the pipe is salty, so I use the hand held ph/TDS meter to measure the water quality.

The meter showed 2.27ppt

Let do some conversion here.

1 ppt = 1000 ppm

and

1 ppm = 1 mg/L

Therefore, 2.27ppt is equal to 2270 mg/L. And let see what US EPA guideline said. According to the US EPA the maximum allowable TDS in the drinking water is 500 mg/L. It mean, the water that supply from the desert local authority is NOT suitable for drinking.

Let say, everyday we drank 1 litre of water which contain TDS of 2270 mg/L, it means our body actually consumed 2.27g of solid substance. In 1 years, our body consumed almost 830g of solid substance and our kidney needs to work hard to filter these rocks from our body. But there will be higher chances to get kidney stones, gall stones and hardening of the arteries.

So now you know what I want to sell in the desert? XD

Are you happy?

Yesterday, I told my wild horse that our cow is having lunch alone at the fast food restaurant, so lonely and no one like him. But as usual, my wild horse said “So what, he earns more than you.”

So, the definition of happy from my wild horse point of view is that, as long as the company paid high salary to us, we shall be happy no matter what environment we are working. My personal opinion is that, happiness for him is too surface. Money is important, but it doesn’t cover everything.

Some people miss understand the definition of working/job and career.

If you look at Oxford dictionary for the meaning of career, you will get this

an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person's life, usually with opportunities for progress. ▶[as modifier] working with commitment in a particular profession.

And definition for work is

such activity as a means of earning income.

And definition for job is

a paid position of regular employment.

So, can you see the different?

When you work or you take a job, it mean your final target or objective of your action is to earn money and nothing more than that. You will get paid for what you have done, or the payer, in his/her opinion that you valued.

On the other hand, career has more in it. Apart from getting paid, it also includes commitments and self growing.

If you asking me if I had found my career? I can just said, I’m glad that I’m an engineer. I knew what I want to be, but I don’t have the right medium.

If you follow my blog since I started, you will remember I said that love your job, but don’t fall in love with the company. Am I happy? Well, the answer is I feel tired. I wish to see a healthy growing environment, but I can’t see the future since few years ago.

Luckily, I still have a group of colleagues that work with me. We tend to laugh at our own stupidity and giving all the hard work to solve every obstacle that we faced. I believe everyone is tired but we still give a warming smile to each other. We know nothing much we can do for the current situation, but at least we don’t make it worst.

When the boat is sinking, instead of digging another hole on it, help to pour water out of the boat.

Flash App. Testing

Suddenly want to write a small flash application for mortgage, so here you are.

It's 10-10-10 10:10

What is 10 Oct 2010 mean to you?

It mean I still have 82 days until the end of year 2010.

It also mean I miss the Nike run.

And it mean I'm in love with my lady for 4319 days #^.^#

Another quick puzzle

The desert getting more and more flies, don't know why. I manage to kill few with my bare hands. Found this simple puzzle, so let your brain do some exercises.

Dinstein and Wisely is cycling on the road from opposite direction. When they are exactly 20km apart, they began racing toward each other. The instant they started, a fly on the handlebar of Dinstein's bike also started flying toward Wisely. As soon as it reached the Wisely's handlebar, it turned and started back toward Dinstein. They fly flew back and forth in this way until two bicycles met. Each bicycle moved at constant speed of 10km/h and the fly flew at a constant speed of 15km/h. Find, how much distance did the fly cover?

============= Update: The solution ===============


I'd extracted this puzzle from a great story about John von Neumann. If you don't know who is John von Neumann, then you must be sleeping in the class. He is a mathematician, but I knew him because of computing. If you want to know more about this great mathematician, you can visit the wiki.

Ok, back to the story.

At a cocktail party, someone has posed this puzzle to him. Von Neumann withdrew himself to another room and figure out the answer. With a very short time, von Neumann come back with a correct answer.

For most of us will look at this as a very complicated puzzle. We will start to measure the distance that the fly flew back and forth; using integration, area under graphs, etc.

The answer given by this great mathematician to this question is very straight forward and simple.

First, calculate the time needed for both bicycle met.

time = distance / speed
time = 20km / (10 + 10)km/h
time = 1 hr.

Both Dinstein and Wisely will met after 1 hour, and the distance that the fly covered in 1 hour can be calculated as

distance = speed * time
distance = 15km/h * 1h
distance = 15km

Surprise?

Most of us tend to solve problem in very difficult and complex way, but sometime, the solution is just simple and straight forward.

I'm your chef today

Ok, today is Friday, holiday for the desert people. So, as usual, I will cook something.

I'm fan of herbal egg, so today I want to teach you how to cook the herbal egg in a very simple way.

First, count how many eggs you want to cook. Because egg yolk got high cholesterol, so normally lady wouldn't take too much, and they wouldn't let their bf or husband to take much also. I personally limit it to 3 pieces per person. Wash the egg with water first because we need to sop it in the water for sometime. Unless you like that taste, then you can skip this step.

Then boil the eggs for about 10-15 minute. To prevent the egg from cracking, I suggest to put the egg and warm water together first, then only boil the water.

After all the eggs are boiled, take it out and put into cool water. There are two purposes for this action. First is to make the egg not so hot so you can hold it, second is to make it crack. Once you can hold the egg, crack the egg shell.

Meanwhile, we need to prepare the herbal soup.

The ingredients are very simple. 200-250ml of soya sauce, 200-250g of white sugar, a litter bit (1 tea spoon) of dark soya sauce, a litter bit of salt and finally a packet of herbal egg packet. You can easily get the herbal egg packet from the Chinese medical shop. To boil these ingredients, you can either using cooking stove or using rice cooker.

Once the herbal soup is boiled, you can put in the eggs and let it boil. Use mild fire and monitor the soup level, make sure at any time, the soup is covering the eggs.

Then let it cook for 2 hours.

Ya, 2 hours.

So what you can do in this 2 hours?

Well, you can start to write a blog about how to cook herbal egg, just like what I'm doing now. Or you can watch a movie or porns*, read magazine, talk crap to other, anything you want to do but too busy to do on the normal day. Just remember don't sleep, I don't to be sued by anyone because they fall asleep and the kitchen cause fire and that person die together with the egg. So, please remember don't sleep if you are using gas stove.

Ok, 1 hour passed and I'm still waiting for the eggs.

For all the guys out there (girls, please give us some private space, thank you), introduce a new hot chick to you all, please put your hands together and welcome Cica

She is hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, back to our eggs.

Finally, here the egg after 2 hours of boiling.

You definitely can't compare the taste with those herbal egg sold at the shop. Those eggs have been cook for more than 2 hours, maybe few days. Tasty food normally is not a healthy food. So, home made herbal egg is not the best, but it is good. Enjoy.

F.A.Q

Q: Can I use other egg because my house don't have chicken egg.
A: Yes, you can use any egg you want, duck egg, goose egg, ostrich egg, or your own eggs, but please don't use turtle egg, I still want to see turtle when I go diving.

Q: I do not have measuring cup, how do get 200ml of soya sauce?
A: There got few ways, first you can go buy a measuring cup, 2nd you can base on your feel, 3rd look at the volume stated on soya sauce bottle's label, use a ruler and divide it into few equal lengths. The volume of each length is equal to (full bottle volume) / (number of divisions + 1).

Q: How about sugar, I don't have weighing machine.
A: A 200g sugar is about 1 cup of sugar.

Q: Then how big is 1 cup**.
A: It's depend on what size your are wearing.

O.O

Ok, ok, no more stupid question.

Footnote:
* Please share. Sharing is caring.
**
1 tablespoon (tbsp) = 3 teaspoons (tsp)
1/16 cup = 1 tablespoon
1/8 cup = 2 tablespoons
1/6 cup = 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons
1/4 cup = 4 tablespoons
1/3 cup = 5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon
3/8 cup = 6 tablespoons
1/2 cup = 8 tablespoons
2/3 cup = 10 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons
3/4 cup = 12 tablespoons

1 cup = 48 teaspoons
1 cup = 16 tablespoons
8 fluid ounces (fl oz) = 1 cup
1 pint (pt) = 2 cups
1 quart (qt) = 2 pints
4 cups = 1 quart

How to play DivX on Nokia phone

if you looking for Divx player on your S60v5 phone, then maybe you can get a try on this beta release. DivX Labs is offering the DivX player for the Nokia touch phone, you may go to their website to download the application.

I tried the application with a converted video of 640x360 resolution, the result is not very convincing. The audio is ok, but the video is pausing. Maybe a low resolution will better.

The other way is to convert video into MPEG4 (mp4) using free converter from the internet, you can get it here.

The process of converting is simple since the UI is very simple and the conversion rate is fast which is about 40fps. I found that this setting is quite optimize between quality and the file size.

Format: MP4(MPEG-4 / AAC)
Video bitrate: 750kbps
FPS: 30
Resolution: 640x350 or 640x360 (custom)

A 30 minutes of video is about 170MB and the quality is as good as DivX which have similar file size. The playback is smooth and sound is clear.

It's October

Today is 1st day of October; it means I still have 3 months before the new year is arrived.

Still got few more weeks to go before I can go back to Bolehland. I can start to feel the temperature in the desert is dropping. According to the history, the temperature will drop after the dusty windblown. The not so hot temperature reminded me that the autumn has arrived. Now, working at site is much comfortable as compare to last few months.

However, I still hate this project. I believe most of my colleagues also feel the same. The project has been started since mid of 2008 and seriously working with desert people is like working with stubborn moron and con-man.

They never honour their words, and if you think they will be gentleman, please don't trust them. They never. They will never dare to take any responsibility. They are 101% coward. You can't imaging they can refuse their signature. Those morons are also ego. They always think they are the best and they will always try to modify here and there to show that they are greater than you, whenever you give suggestion to them. Sometime, we laugh at their stupidity but most of the time we laugh at our uselessness to follow their moron idea.

Most of the so call engineer can't even know how to count 1, 2, 3. They like to comment on the colour, the shape and choose those expensive items, no care whether it is needed or not. They don't know how to read drawing, specification, manual or any engineering document. So when the finishing is not their imagined, they will find excuse to let you redo. When you ask them to a written instruction, you can just dream. They never dare to put their signature.

Most of us being f by these morons. We feel heart pain and helpless when all the brainstormed ideas and hard works have been condemned as worst than shit. Sometime I wonder why we waste so much effort and time for those useless morons. Maybe we still an engineer.

Really hope for the remaining months, everything can run smoothly. We all want to escape from this nightmare.

For all the warriors, just bear for another few weeks and end this. Then we go Tokyo to visit the girl's high school #^^#

Gravity Master

Found this puzzle game from the internet, very similar to Crayon Physics. You can play it here or just go to their webpage to play on the bigger screen.

Autumnal Equinox

Today officially the autumnal equinox. It mean the centre of sun is at same plane as the Earth's equator.

The term equinox is derived from two Latin words, aequus (equal) and nox (night). From the word its mean the day and night is equally long, which actually no very true. The day when the day and night is equally long is called equilux, which actually very near to equinox.

Equinox usually occur around 22/23 September, however it may happen on 24th September. It occurred once in year 1931 and it will occur again in year 2303. So most of us will miss both of the occurrence.

Apart of that what equinox mean?

For Chinese, autumnal equinox usually happen around Mid-Autumn festival, which is yesterday. But due to the lunar calendar is using slightly different calculation, therefore Mid-Autumn festival will usually celebrate between mid September and early October. But some of the countries define autumnal equinox as the beginning of autumn.

Anyway, for me, it mean I have about 3 months before the new year is reached. Autumn always consider as the harvesting season and keep the food for the coming winter. I should start doing that also.

A Chinese poem that you must know during Mid Autumn

One of the best poem written about 1000 years ago by Su Tung Po during the Mid Autumn festival.

明月几时有？把酒问青天。不知天上宫阙，今夕是何年。

我欲乘风归去，又恐琼楼玉宇，高处不胜寒, 起舞弄清影，何似在人间。

转朱阁，抵绮户，照无眠。不应有恨，何事偏向别时圆。 

人有悲欢离合，月有阴晴圆缺，此事古难全。 但愿人长久，千里共婵娟。

I found an English translation by Shun-Yi Lee for those that do not understand Chinese.

When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky.
I don't know what season it would be in the heavens on this night. 

I'd like to ride the wind to fly home,
Yet I fear the crystal and jade mansions are much too high and cold for me.
Dancing with my moon-lit shadow,
It does not seem like the human world.

The moon rounds the red mansion,
Stoops to silk-pad doors,
Shines upon the sleepless.
Bearing no grudge,
Why does the moon tend to be full when people are apart?

People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart,
The moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane,
This has been going on since the beginning of time.
May we all be blessed with longevity,
Though far apart, we are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.

It's Mid Autumn today, although I didn't really celebrate this festival, but I wish I can have a cup of tea with my wife and watch the moon together.

Happy Mid Autumn to everyone.

A quick puzzle

Move only one of these digits to make this equation valid.

26 - 63 = 1

I'll miss the rain

Today is my second day in the desert. Ya, I'm back to this desert after almost a month stay at Bolehland. I miss the cool weather and also rainy day.

Will be at the desert for a month and I hope this time no extension cause I believe this stupid project will not end so soon, at least not before the new year. Thing move slow and everyday need to face to those con-men and jokers that shaking their head while telling you no problem. So, you can't understand whether they are telling you no problem or got problem. I strongly believe they mean "we got problem with your instruction, since you can't understand my body language and you are happy when you see me shaking my head while telling you no problem, therefore we continue to cheer you with this method".

I can't see how to end my job here, maybe I should start pulling the cable myself, I may end it faster than these buggers.

Tomorrow is Bolehland day, I wish I'm there to celebrate it. No matter how stupid is our government, how dark is the politic, Bolehland still my home, it's a wonderful country to stay.

I start to miss the rain and my lovely wife.

It's a touching week

I saw them sleeping calmly, they are so sweet :_)

Congratulation to Chin and Sally, their hard work to bring the cute baby girl and baby boy to this world.

Say NO to facebook's games

When I first started my FB, it's because of FB's game. That time, my apprentice, JJ ask me to play the FB's game (can't really remember what is the name). But I abandon that game after 2-3 weeks because that time FB's games is only text base.

But, it doesn't stop there.

FB's games become more and more interactive and animated. I'm try to stop myself getting involve in any of the games. But too bad that no matter how careful I am, I'm started 2 games. I start social city because of my natural enemy, the super planner asking me to become his neighbour in order for him to expand his city; and the second games is the cafe world due to my sister asking me sending her gift.

For social city, I'm still playing it but not very intensive. Just spend few minute every morning to click on the stupid building. I don't play cafe world, but my wife did -.- She is poisoned.

Initially, it is quite fun to click and build something, but I found it become a very stupid game that what you only need to do is repeating clicking on icon and wait. Repeat and repeat everyday clicking on the same item.

I believe not only me, there are lots of victim out there wasting most their time clicking on the icon everyday. There is nothing gain from these games except they actually let you kill most of your time waiting and clicking. Some become addicted to all these games.

I personally hate these games, they are not difficult to play, they just try to consume your time. Wait for the time to pass in order to click on it again. Totally meaningless.

Anyway, if these games let you calm down yourself or you learn something from it, you may continue it, but personally I really doubt that.

But basically, not only the FB's games, FB itself is kill most of our time, but we just can't get rid of it. So, personally advice, FB when you have spare time and please say NO to FB's games.

My diving trip

The story started when I visited the aquarium at Atlantis Dubai. I was thinking instead of watching these fish behind the glass, I want to see and touch with my own hand. So, I’ve planned to lean diving.

The main reason that leads me to this decision is that I want to conquer my fear on water. Ya, I’m hydrophobia, a very serious one. I never swim in the swimming pool before although I was thinking to do that long time ago. So, I 100% can’t swim. I’m afraid of height also. Last time when I went to Perhentian for snorkeling, I was scared by the depth of the ocean and lucky I can catch on someone before I panic. So, diving is definitely something I will never think of in my life until recently.

Some of my colleagues join this trip, lucky. Cheong, the master swimmer, Huan, JJ and his brother. All of them can swim and none are hydrophobia, only me is the problem one :s

We go to Mersing by bus from Bukit Jalil on Thusday night and we arrive at Mersing bus station around 4am in the morning. Very sleepy and we need to wait until 7.30am to take the first ferry to the Tioman Island. It took about 2 hours from Mersing jetty to Tioman Island.

Mersing jetty in the early morning

When we reached the island, I saw my sensei. Ya, she is a Japanese.

The first session is relatively easy. The class room section. After the class room session, we went to pool and I start to fight with my fear :s

The pool is relatively shallow, I can stand inside the pool, but once I wear my mask and put my head into the water :s I found that I can’t breathe! I spent few minutes to hypnosis myself that I can breathe using my mouth and there is plenty of oxygen in the tank. And finally, I manage to end my pool session successfully.

After having lunch, we went to beach and start diving from the swallow side and went into the deep sea. Ok, first time I put myself 5m under the water. I know I’m in panic mode cause I breathe very fast. And to control my buoyancy is not an easy job. I either sink onto the bottom on the sea or I float to the surface. So I was caught by me sensei together with Huan -.-

the divers and the sensei

shallow dive

Ok, don’t take me wrong, I not purposely one. I really can’t control my buoyancy.

The shallow sea diving is relatively easy and I’m continue to hypnosis myself for tomorrow session, the boat jumping session :s, god please give me strength.

evening view

Sleeping in a very cheap diver lounge is not easy when you need to sleep with mosquito.    

Breakfast session

So, the second day is a nightmare for me cause I need to jump from the boat into the sea :s

The first jump is called the giant stride, where you stand at the behind of the boat with all your equipment on and make a big walk and let yourself fall down into the sea :s Lucky I manage to do that with lots of fear. Saw some corals and fish. We dived into about 14m depth.

The second jump is called the back roll where you sit beside the boat with all your equipments on and “sleep” and fall into the sea. This is less scary since you don’t see the sea and you just pretend that you are sleeping onto the bed.

And the last jump is after lunch at the marine park. The water visibility is very low. Although the dept is shallow, about 8m, but the visibility really scares me. Accidentally my weight belt loosed and I drop 2 pieces of my weight into the sea. Lucky JJ and his brother help me to get it back.

So, finally I get my diving license ^^ but the instructor keep on remind me that I need more practices. So, I decided to learn swimming before I go to take the advance open water.

We stayed at Tioman for extra day and Huan, JJ and his brother went to extra diving by their own cost. I believe these 3 guys will be addicted to this game. I will definitely dive again but before that I really need to learn swimming at least learn how to float.

Small island in front of Tekek village

I'll be back

If you are interested to learn diving, you may use the following web for enquiry.

   

Phone scam

Just received a call from this number +876332555, once I picked up the phone, the fucker start crying and call me dad and ask for help. I wish that fucker good luck cause one day he will end up in deep shit. Shame for his family for not teaching their children or grandchildren.

Life become more and more difficult, and everywhere got these swindlers and trying their luck to cheat some money out of us. Sometime, I wonder why these people can't use their hands to work to earn their living, is that so difficult? If these people like to live as parasite, please ask god to take back everything since they wouldn't use it. Go to hell idiot!

Is the universe is just a series of random occurrence, or it is programmed.

Paris-London Trip - Final

After the day 9th, there is not much place that we visit, because most of the time we are travelling.

On the day 10th morning, we went to shopping at the Regent Street because my wife need to help her brother in law to buy Burberry for her sister. Then we went to purchase the fish-and-chip at the restaurant recommended by the local tour guide. Once again, for someone like me that can't differential the fresh fish and frozen fish, I can only say that fish is nice. We took the Eurostar from London at St. Pancras station to go back to Paris.

We reached Paris around 6pm, after having some fast food and bought some water and a box of strawberry, we went to the hotel near the airport. My wife is still worry because of the volcano ashes, all the flights have been cancelled for few days. As usual, I just told her that, she should be happy cause we can have an extended honeymoon.

When we reach the train station at hotel area, it is around 7pm++. There is not much bus going to the hotel and we waited until around 8.30pm, we manage to get our bus to the hotel. Thanks to the bus driver for giving us a free trip.

On the next day, day 11th, we went back to Paris area to do the shopping at the Galleries Lafayette, the luxury shopping mall that sell all the luxury brands. My wife promise to buy a LV purse for her colleague, and when we reached the LV store, suddenly I just want to stop purchase those items. Why?

It is not because of the price, if you follow those brands, you will find that the price at Paris is almost same but there is one advantage, which is you will get 12% discount back from the sales tax VAT (Value Added Tax), and the end, it is actually much cheaper than Bolehland.

Suddenly I just felt that I'm like being cheated by the brand, because 99% of the customer in the shop is Asian especially Chinese. People will told you that Parisian do not know how to speech English, but in this shop, they can speech Mandarin with you.

Well, feeling being cheated and the kiansu spirit always contra each other. At the end, my wife bought the purse for her colleague and me bought a purse for her. She actually doesn't want me to waste the money, but still I prefer she to have one.

When my wife still worry whether our flight still cancel or not, and as I said, I'm the luckiest man in the world, the flight from Paris finally re-open tomorrow. We finally took the flight according to our schedule and back to Bolehland. When we purchase the ticket, we actually only plan to take 10 days and luckily the agent told me that the return ticket for that date is expensive and she propose us to take the flight two days after that, and that make us the luckiest passengers.

Ok, that's all for the trip. 

My wife, she is so sweet.

Paris-London Trip - Day 9

We’ve booked a local tour for the Day 9^th.

On the early morning, we went to the Victoria station to wait for our tour bus. Although I preferred to do free-and-easy tour instead of taking local tour, but due to the time limit, I took a local day tour to outside of London.

The first stop of the day tour is at the Bath.

The Roman Bath

   Bath is a very nice place, I really love that place. Because our tour is come with the entrance ticket to the Roman Bath, so we spent most of the time in the museum and too bad we didn’t have much time walking around the town. So, my advice is that, it is much better walking on the town area than go to see those historical items, unless you are history maniac.

One of the remarkable buildings at Bath is the Royal Crescent. From the name, you will know, that is for rich people. I wish I can stay there.

After leaving the beautiful Bath, we went to the second tourist spot, the Salisbury Cathedral. The Salisbury Cathedral is a very huge and elegant cathedral, and what make this cathedral so famous is because of a document, the Magna Carta. It is the first written document that limit the King’s power and get his hand off the money.

The Salisbury Cathedral

The solar clock

Nothing much on the building itself, except there is a world’s oldest working clock and the Baptismal Font.

The Baptismal Font

After leaving the Salisbury, we went to the last destination, the Stonehedge. It is a prehistoric monument and until today no one knows what is it exactly used for, and how it was built. Some said, it is used for buried, some said it is a calendar and some said it is the astronomy observatory.

The Stonehedge

 

We reached back to the London around 7pm, after working around the town, we went back again to the hotel.

Paris-London Trip - Day 8

Ok, I know I've stopped my posing about this for some time. So, today I just want to finish it.

We wake up early in the morning and went to walk around London streets on day 8th.

 The first stop is at the Bank of England.

The Bank of England

One of the main economies of England is her financial services, and London is one of the world’s largest financial centers and she is the world’s greatest exchange market with $1.36 trillion USD in 2007. If you wonder how much is $1.36 trillion is. You can write it as $1,360,000,000,000. If you change all the money into gold, with the gold price of $37.5 USD/g, you will get about 36,200 tonnes of gold, which about 1880m3 of gold. If you still can’t imagine how much that is, let say, you put a 1 meter by 1 meter gold bar on the ground, and you will see an 1880 meter height gold bar. So, how high is 1880m? it is about 4 times higher than our Bolehland twin tower.

Ok, I’m enough with that :p

The next stop is the St. Paul Cathedral. According to the dictionary, cathedral is church which contains the bishop’s throne. I’m not Christian, so, I’m not sure what is the different between a church with bishop and a church without bishop. Anyway, it’s the place where Prince Charles and Lady Diana get married.

The St. Paul Cathedral

 We went to the Tower of London area, but we didn’t go in, due to time and also the entrance fees. Tower of London is just beside the River Thames. And next to the Tower of London is one of the most famous bridges, the Tower Bridge, which always mistakenly known as the London Bridge. We waiting there for a while, hope to see the bridge open. However, luck is not on our side that day. Because there is not schedule on the opening of the bridge, so, it’s really much depending on your luck. According to the statistic, the bridge will open once per day and rising time is around 3-5 minutes. So, you can spend one whole day sitting beside the river and wait for the luck to come, if you have plenty of time.

2 pieces of Tower Bridge photo

After the Tower Bridge, we went to some place that I really want to go. The Greenwich. Sound familiar? Do you remember the Greenwich Mean Time, GMT? I’ve studied that when I’m in secondary school. The 0° longitude is crossing the Royal Observatory, which defined the time.

The Royal Observatory 

Greenwich Park is a very huge and beautiful park. If you really have time, you must sit on the green grass and enjoy the scenery.

On the way back, we walk on the River Thames and there are lots of bridges along the River Thames.

We finally visit the last place for today, the British Museum. We arrived slightly late, most of the exhibition halls are closed and we only manage to visit the main hall before we back to hotel.

This is the London Bridge

The British Museum